Here’s bad blood between these two, with both fighters wanting to hurt each other. There’s going to be a real bloodbath in the UFC Octagon on Saturday based on what we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks.
What we saw is du Plessis mocking Strickland for his unhappy childhood, Strickland attacking him in the stands at the previous UFC PPV event. Du Plessis hurt him emotionally and Strickland now wants to hurt him physically. Based on the Strickland vs. du Plessis odds, he might.
Sean Strickland is a -140 favorite right now, which wasn’t the case in his previous fight. Against Israel Adesanya in the title fight, he was a +500 underdog. But he went to war with Izzy for the full five rounds, landing 137 strikes (43 more than Adesanya) and winning by decision.
Strickland is famous for being a tough fighter who lands a lot of significant strikes and who’s not afraid to get hit. This explains why two of his five career losses happened by KO/TKO; the other three happened by decision. He’s never suffered a loss by submission because it’s hard to get him down to the ground. His takedown defense is 84%, and he tends not to make too many TD attempts. This explains why only four of his 28 career wins happened by submission.
Sean Strickland’s title challenger is one of the most well-rounded fighters in the UFC. This guy is a fantastic striker who lands 6.95 significant strikes per minute. That’s more than any fighter Strickland has ever fought, even Alex Pereira who KO-ed him in 2022.
The most impressive fact about du Plessis’s striking is that his punches and kicks are incredibly powerful. This explains why the South African fighter has nine KO/TKO wins in his portfolio. He also has 10 wins by submission, and just one by decision.
When it comes to his losses, he lost once by KO and once by submission. However, it’s been a while since he lost the last time.
In fact, he’s got all wins since joining the UFC in 2020. There’s no way this fight will go the distance. These guys hate each other and want to finish the fight as quickly as possible.
They’re both very tough, so it’s going to be a real war in the Octagon, but who’s going to win?
